A new report from Marchex, based on an analysis of millions of calls and using ad-spending data from Google and call growth projections from BIA/Kelsey, argues that mobile “click-to-call commerce” is worth more than $1 trillion today.

Consider that e-commerce is marching toward $500 million (or more, depending on the source of the estimate). Consumers spend more than $11 trillion offline (the entire US GDP is $18 trillion). An increasing volume of that offline spending is being influenced by the internet, and mobile devices in particular.

Calls often stand between online research (increasingly mobile lookups) and offline transactions. This is where click-to-call comes in and where Marchex’s report seeks to illuminate the huge impact of smartphone-driven calls on real-world commerce.

The chart below reflects an analysis of the percentages of calls by vertical that result in a direct conversion or shopping research, which may then turn into an offline transaction. These inquiries include questions such as, “Is the item still available?,” “Do you have my size?,” “When is the next available appointment?” “What is the cost?,” and “Are you still open?”

The remainder of the calls, not reflected above, fall into the category of pure customer service, telemarketing/spam or other non-conversion or lead-based activity.

One of the fascinating discussions in the report involves what Marchex calls the “abandon” rate for calls. These are essentially calls terminated before a connection with a business or call center representative. Abandons can be caused by long hold times, voicemail, IVR frustrations and other issues.

The data below reflect that about 20 percent of calls — from an analysis of millions of calls — are abandoned. This is a remarkable number that shows how businesses (large and small) are leaving money on the table by not following good phone customer service and phone sales practices.

The final chart breaks down abandons by several verticals. Real estate and multi-family housing is the worst offender of the industries shown. Nearly a third of these calls are abandoned by consumers who are frustrated by hold times or other issues with the way calls are handled.

In the aggregate, these call abandons could represent billions of dollars annually in lost sales opportunities. The striking thing here is that these lost sales aren’t about optimized campaigns or landing pages or sophisticated cross-device targeting and analytics. It’s just about answering the phone and not keeping people waiting too long.

The full report contains a great deal more data and discussion. You can download it (registration required) here.

Facebook announced second quarter earnings this afternoon. The company posted revenues of $4.04 billion and beat analyst consensus revenue estimates for the quarter by about $50 million. Earnings per share also beat estimates, but relatively narrowly.

The bulk of quarterly revenue came from advertising ($3.82 billion), with a small amount ($215 million) from payments and other fees. Roughly 49% of revenue was generated in the US and Canada.

The company said that mobile ad revenue was 76 percent of total ad revenue, which was up from 62 percent a year ago. Mobile active users were 1.31 billion, up 23 percent. Daily mobile users were 844 million, a 29 percent increase, and mobile-only monthly users were 655 million.

Total monthly active users were just under 1.5 billion, which was up 13 percent year over year.

The company said that on average, it made $2.61 in ad revenue on each user worldwide during the quarter. In the US and Canada, the figure was much higher: $8.63.

Cash and cash equivalents were $14.13 billion at the end of the quarter.

Notes and selected observations from the earnings call:

CEO Mark Zuckerberg:

People spend a daily average of 46 minutes on Facebook and its associated family of apps.

He says that there are now more than 40 million active small and medium-sized business (SMB) pages on Facebook.

There are more than 1.5 billion searches on Facebook per day. Most are non-commercial, for “people and posts.”

Oculus will come to consumers in Q1 in 2016.

COO Sheryl Sandberg:

We continue to get more than one in five mobile minutes in the US.

“We have the best performing mobile ad products in the market.”

More than 40 million active SMB pages “and the number continues to grow.”

Mobile is the key driver of our revenue growth; revenue from PCs down.

Payments down based on decline in games played on PCs.

Company now has 10,955 total employees.

31% operating margin (GAAP)

Analyst Questions:

Question about Oculus launch and use cases: Zuckerberg — Virtual reality (VR) is a richer way to share than video. Immersive 3D content the obvious next thing after video.

Question re advertising on Instagram: Sandberg — We’re going to be thoughtful about how we ramp revenue.

Question re whether Instagram will be used for different types of advertisers: Sandberg — Lots of verticals can use Instagram. “We see such engagement on mobile.” More apps helps us drive business results for more advertisers.

Video and mobile being emphasized repeatedly — broad-based consumer media advertising, but in a targeted way.

Question re monetization of Messenger and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg appeals for “patience,” as he says they’ll follow the path of News Feed and take a long-term view.

Earlier this week, Baidu announced Q2 2015 earnings. Total revenues grew 38 percent year over year to $2.67 billion. However, profit was down 2.5 percent to $559.6 million.

The company is moving away from revenue reliance on search, which is becoming less profitable as usage shifts to mobile devices. Indeed, Baidu said that mobile drove 50 percent of total revenues but was sequentially flat.

Baidu executives repeatedly referred in their earnings statements to the development of “the Next Baidu,” which will reportedly be mobile-centric and driven by more commerce and transactional revenue. The company describes it as the “O2O e-commerce opportunity.”

Below are selected top-level data from the Q2 earnings statement:

Baidu had 629 million mobile search users in June 2015, which represents 24 percent year-over-year growth

In Q4 last year, Baidu (like everyone else) proclaimed itself a “mobile first” company. The company is dealing with some of the same pressures and shifting usage patterns in China that Google confronts in the US and other markets globally. Accordingly, Baidu has decided to diversify into e-commerce and a range of mobile services, including payments.

It’s worth noting, however, that Baidu’s 629 million mobile search users in China equals roughly twice the US population.

Yelp announced Q2 2015 earnings this afternoon. The company had quarterly revenues of $133.9 million, which represented 51 percent year-over-year growth and handily beat analyst expectations. However, earnings-per-share were below expectations, and guidance was lowered, causing the stock to fall in after-hours trading.

Yelp said that reviews grew 35 percent from 61 million to 83 million. And for the first time, the company said its mobile uniques surpassed desktop users.

Yelp had 83 million monthly mobile unique users in the quarter and 79 million desktop uniques. Yelp added, “The majority of Yelp consumer engagement now occurs on the app with approximately 70 percent of new reviews and photos and approximately 70 percent of calls, clicks for directions and map views coming via the Yelp app.”

Yelp grew the aggregate number of local business advertisers 40 percent year over year and generated more revenue from CPC ads. The company said CPC advertising was responsible for 46 percent of revenues in the quarter, which was an increase of 40 percent sequentially.

Results were generally upbeat, but the stock is down because the company is lowering its outlook for the remainder of the year. Yelp said this was due to two things:

Slower sales headcount growth

The elimination of its brand advertising product, which represented a declining percentage of overall revenue

Yelp expects Q3 revenue to be in the range of $139 million to $142 million. For the full year, the company expects revenues of $544 million to $550 million.

A few months ago, there was a rumor, reported in the Wall Street Journal, that because of “slow growth and rising costs,” Yelp had been shopping itself to a buyer. That was quickly followed by reports that it had decided for the time being not to sell itself.

Most mobile marketers today are using location-based advertising. That’s a key finding from a new survey of marketers from mobile ad platform xAd. However uncertainty about ROI and campaign performance is holding back more enthusiastic adoption.

The company surveyed 574 ad agency executives and marketing decision makers from four regions: North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America to assess their attitudes and adoption of location-based mobile marketing.

As a foundational matter, a majority of respondents said that “mobile advertising is a priority.” What I find interesting, however, is that only a minority labeled it a “top priority.” This indicates a lack of urgency among many marketers, which is striking given widely documented mobile-first consumer behavior.

Another half-full, half-empty finding is that marketers reported consumers currently engaging with their ads or a belief that they will engage with or be receptive to them in the future. While that can be regarded as a upbeat finding, there’s an ambivalent subtext — or uncertainty about the efficacy of mobile advertising.

Here’s the headline: the great majority (78 percent) of marketers surveyed were already using location in their mobile ad campaigns. The most striking thing here however is that location (or location history) is being used as a way to reach specific audiences. It has overtaken real-time location targeting, which is the way most people still think about location based advertising.

Mobile-location history enables marketers and ad platforms to bucket consumers into aggregate audience segments. Location history thus becomes a proxy for audience. Smartphone moms display these patterns, business travelers or auto-intenders show others, and so on.

Yet location-derived audience targeting can also combined with real-time location targeting (e.g., QSR regulars who are within 2 miles of a McDonalds) to produce even more powerful results in many instances.

The final aspect of the survey I want to address is the source of brand or marketer hesitation to spend more on location-based targeting. While nearly 80 percent of marketer-respondents said they were already using location targeting, the chart below implies it’s not a matter of routine in their campaigns.

The question to which the chart below responds is: “In your opinion, what is the biggest factor holding back brands from spending on mobile location advertising?” Inability to measure ROI or campaign performance were the biggest factors identified as obstacles to further investment.

In one sense this is a generic concern about mobile advertising (or any relatively new medium). But there are already solutions to the mobile ROI question today (e.g., measuring offline conversions from mobile campaigns). So one would imagine that in the near future these sorts of objections will go away.

The findings of this survey are interesting as an examination of the current use of location by marketers. However even these top-level results reveal much about marketers’ still-existing ambivalence or uncertainty about mobile as an advertising medium, even in the face of overwhelming consumer adoption and usage.

Very often smartphone users click a link to a mobile Web page and are confronted by a interstitial promotion asking them to download the publisher’s app. Users generally hate these takeovers, and they do almost nothing for the brand or publisher — except alienate users.

Google has determined empirically that interstitials don’t work and that the same call to action is more effectively presented as a mobile banner at the top of the page — provided it doesn’t take up too much space and is easily dismissed.

In a case study on app download interstitials, Google found in its own promotion of the Google+ app (a comScore top 15 app) that 69 percent of users who encountered the interstitial abandoned the visit entirely. In other words, they didn’t go to Google Play to get the app or continue to the mobile site to interact with the intended content.

Google said that 9 percent of visitors pressed the “get app” button. However, only a subset of those users probably took action. Google doesn’t report these numbers.

As part of the case study, Google subsequently tested the alternative banner approach for app promotion (upper right example). It found that:

Apple just announced its fiscal Q3 earnings. The company generally beat analyst expectations with $49.6 billion in revenue and $10.7 billion in net income. However guidance was light and iPhone units underperformed vs. analyst expectations, even though iPhone revenue was up 59 percent over last year.

Of the $49.6 billion, Greater China contributed $13.2 billion which was down sequentially but up 112 percent vs a year ago. Americas generated $20.2 billion in sales.

Reiterating that it wouldn’t disclose specific sales figures, Apple provided some color, but not a great deal, on Apple Watch performance. The “other” category where the Apple Watch lives grew by nearly $1 billion sequentially.

Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that more than 100 percent of that growth is attributable to the Watch. Analysts polled by Bloomberg estimated that Apple had sold about 1.9 million Watch units during the quarter, at an average selling price of $499.

Analysts had expected iPhone sales of 48.8 million to 50 million units. So 47.5 million in unit sales for the quarter emerges as a miss. Shares are off in after-hours trading on iPhone growth fears.

Notes from the earnings call:

CEO Tim Cook:

Apple Music “numbers are growing every day.” He says “millions and millions” of people around the world already using it.

We continue to gain significant market share in the PC market and sold a record number of Macs (4.8 million units), especially in larger context of the market contraction.

iPad has 76 percent market share in tablet segment priced over $200.

Services revenue saw an increase 12 percent over last year; $5 billion was an “all-time record.” More than 250K apps in Chinese app store.

Apple Watch contributed significant growth to “other” category. Reiterates that the company won’t be disclosing sales numbers so as “not to help the competition.”

Mobile traffic to Apple’s site equaled PC traffic for the first time.

456 retail stores; 190 outside US

$202.8 billion in cash or equivalents, the majority of which (nearly 90 percent) is offshore

Excepts from analyst questions and discussion:

Question about iPhone sequential decline: Cook says that iPhone growth still outpacing the general smartphone market. There’s still 73 percent of the Apple base who have not upgraded to the iPhone 6. Apple says seeing a very high iPhone switcher rate.

Question about growth markets, margins and exchange rates: Maestri speaks in technical, CFO-like terms about currency exchange rates and global economic conditions. As an aside he says iPhone 6+ has been a huge hit in Asia.

Question about Apple Watch performance: Cook talks about the rationale behind not disclosing Watch sales. Look at “other” revenue category; some things in there are shrinking. He says sales of the Watch “exceeded our expectations.”

Watch sell-through in quarter higher than original iPhone and iPad — and done with fewer points of sale. (Arguing demand is healthy.) He says, “Very good news on sales; but we’re more focused on how the product is positioned for the long term.”

Cook: We’re convinced the Watch is going to be one of the top gifts of the holiday season. Customer satisfaction is “off the charts.” He argues this will translate into sales.

Question about iPhone market share and how Apple thinks about it: Cook — our job is to grow our products regardless of the price. We think that if we do a great job with the product people will spend more because they get more out of the product.

Cook cites growth for Apple in emerging markets as validation of the company’s thinking. He says, “We are expanding the market for our products.”

Question re Apple iPhone maturity, product life-cycle and diversification of revenues: Cook says that he sees many years of growth both for the smartphone market and for the iPhone in particular. He says that Apple can do many things well. He says, “I’m still bullish on the iPad.”

Cook turns Apple’s now-underdog status and lower marketshare as a growth opportunity in both mature and emerging markets.

Question about economic weakness in China: Cook acknowledges market volatility and potential “speed bumps” but affirms that China will be Apple’s largest market in the near future. We’ll be at 40 stores in 2016 in China. Country and region still represent an “Unprecedented level of opportunity.”

Ahead of Apple earnings today, there have been numerous reports about how Apple Watch sales are tanking. But whatever the actual sales figures, apparently the early adopters are highly satisfied.

In fact, the satisfaction numbers are higher than any other first generation product launched — better than the original iPhone or iPad. These findings are based on an 800 Apple Watch owner survey conducted by wearable research provider Wristly.

Respondents reported either being “somewhat satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the Apple Watch. Two-thirds of those respondents reported being “very satisfied” (66 percent). I suspect these numbers will come up on the earnings call today.

Among Apple Watch buyers, “Non Tech Users“ report being the most satisfied. Seventy-three percent of this group said they were “very satisfied” vs. lower numbers for “Tech Insiders” and “App Builders.”

Among features most liked and disliked, Build/Quality and Aesthetics/Design both ranked at 80 percent and 74 percent in terms of those “very satisfied.” Ease of Use and Features/Functionality scored much lower (among those saying they were “very satisfied”), indicating where improvements can or should be made.

Mobile loyalty company SessionM recently surveyed 12,000 randomly selected US smartphone users about their mobile shopping behaviors. The company found that 85 percent of respondents said their m-commerce buying was steady or had increased versus a year ago.

More than 90 percent of respondents said they had made a retail purchase in the past 90 days. The great majority (73 percent) had made those purchases in a traditional, physical store. Roughly 53 percent agreed that the in-store experience was still superior to online/mobile shopping.

However, confirming the findings of many earlier surveys, the overwhelming majority (90 percent) said they use their smartphones in stores while shopping. The top activities on smartphones while in-stores were the following:

Price comparisons — 54 percent

Looking up product information — 48 percent

Checking reviews online — 42 percent

Another top in-store smartphone behavior, not on this list, is seeking coupons or deals. Though not in top three above, in-store deal-seeking is consistently found to be one of the top smartphone uses.

Two important marketing opportunities for retailers were identified (or reinforced) in the data:

Opportunity surrounding in-store push notifications about deals/offers (57 percent were more likely to shop at a store if available)

Loyalty programs (76 percent would be more likely to shop at a store if available)

As indicated, the SessionM data confirm a well established, growing body of consumer survey and behavioral data around in-store smartphone usage. Yet most retailers have been painfully slow to take advantage of it (rather, they cry “showrooming”).

Deals and loyalty programs are two reasons for shoppers to download a retailer app, which can then get them to opt-in to notifications. Mobile payments is another reason, but in most cases, that functionality isn’t ready.

Retailers must see in-store smartphone usage as an extension of the traditional retail experience and adapt their apps, mobile sites and in-store signage (and other marketing) to take account of and leverage smartphone shopper behavior. Believe it or not, eight years in, there’s still an opportunity to be a mobile “early adopter” in retail.

With a larger global audience, it’s no surprise that Android app downloads lead iOS. What’s more surprising is that iOS continues to maintain its revenue lead vs. the larger platform despite its larger download margin.

Those data come from the App Annie Q2 Index report, released earlier this week.

What’s also interesting to observe is that the patterns by country differ for the two platforms. The top five countries by revenue are substantially different for each of the platforms, except for the presence of the US and Japan on both lists. And with the exception of the US and Russia, the top five countries on the downloads chart are also different.

China now is the top country for iOS downloads; however, it’s not in the top five for Android. While Android has a nearly 80 percent market share in China, it doesn’t show up on the top downloads or revenue charts for Android. That may be because there are so many competing and alternative app stores to Google Play in China.

In contrast to the differences between the top revenue and download categories in the charts above, the time spent/session duration lists by app store are generally similar. Social is the top time spent category for both iOS and Android.

The session duration lists have even greater overlap. Of course both data sets below are for the US, so one might expect user behavior to be consistent across platforms.

Video streaming is growing on mobile, and it’s likely responsible for entertainment being the top session duration category on both lists. Yesterday, on its earnings call, Google said the following about video session length and mobile:

Growth in watch time on YouTube has accelerated and is now up over 60 percent year-over-year, the fastest growth rate we’ve seen in two years. Mobile watch time has more than doubled from a year ago.

YouTube reaches more 18 to 49 year old in the U.S. than any U.S. cable network . . . On mobile the average viewing session is now more than 40 minutes up more than 50 percent year-over-year.